Ethan Frome Emptiness
...nected to the environment. “ The night was perfectly still, and the air so dry and pure that it gave little sensation of cold. The effect produced on Frome was rather of complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than ether the metallic dome overhead,” (pg 28). It is the nature that controls Ethan Frome’s life. Ethan living in Starkfield, which the name itself means emptiness, is isolated almost by himself for six long months during the winter. As opposed to the cold environment in which Ethan lives, he finds something energetic and cheerful. This founding is Mattie Silver, the cousin of Ethan’s wife. In chapter two, Ethan goes to pick up Mattie from the dance. He knows to look for Mattie's bright red scarf to find her in the crowd of people dancing. The scarf represents the cheerful and vibrant, characteristics that Mattie has. Mattie also on the way home has bright red cheeks, lips, (and the scarf) is a big difference comparing to the sullen and cold environment Ethan lives in. Mattie is also associated with the color red shows that she is a passionate, animated, and emotional person, unlike anyone in Starkfield, including Zeena who is usually unfriendly and bitter. Ethan admires and supposedly loves that Mattie is warm and a giving person and with her he does not feel lonely and isolated from everyone. With her he feels happy, something that Zeena could never make him feel now. Once the news that Mattie is going to have to go is told to Ethan, he realizes that he would be alone and isolated without her. This is not the first time that this happened to him. When he was younger his mom went crazy and he was isolated until Zeena came. So the reason he doesn’t want to lose Mattie is because he would feel isolated again, something he can not stand. “’I don’t have to. We’ll follow the track,’”(pg 132). In the last chapter is where the ironic crash happens. It is Ethan who gets in the front of the sled, only to have it then be controlled by the cold, and bitter ground which brought him isolation. It is extremely ironic that he would rather choose to die, then to live in isolation, and at the end to have this happen to him anyway. It is the terrain, that lonely and empty space, that leads Ethan and Mattie into the tree. Ethan chooses not to control his own destiny and fate just to get away from isolation, which as the reader continue...